TWELFTH DISTRICT. ELEVENTH DISTRICT.
Worcester......17,013 Talbot......... 11,070
Somerset....... 19,903 Caroline.........10,390
Dorchester..... 16,338
Total......... 53,254 Total..........21,460
So it seems that as arranged in this amend-
ment the twelfth district has about two and a
half times as large a population as the eleventh.
There is a great impropriety in that, as the
convention will see. in order to equalize it,
I move to transfer Dorchester county to the
eleventh district.
Mr. SANDS. I wish to make a remark in
reply to the suggestion of my friend from
Montgomery (Mr. Peter) about the fairness
of this proposition. I am in the same judi-
cial circuit with my friend; and I know
what difficulties we have under the present
arrangement. But I remind the gentleman
that this amendment proposes at least to
divide the difficulty and leave us only half
the difficulty we have had heretofore. My
friend asks on what principle of justice we
can give to Baltimore city and Frederick
county and Allegany counts one judge each,
and not give to Montgomery one judge. If
my friend will just look at the last census, at
the number of people over whom these judges
are to preside, whose affairs they are to regu-
late, be will see the even handed justice of
this proposition. For instance, Baltimore
county, according; to the census, has a white
population of forty-seven thousand souls,
and Montgomery county of eleven thousand.
So Baltimore county has four times the
amount of white population, the number of
people who are to go into the courts as suit-
ors, that Montgomery has. Is there no jus-
tice then in saying that Baltimore county
shall have a judge, and that Montgomery
county, not having near the population of
Baltimore county, shall have with another
county a judge to preside over the same
number of people and to transact the same
amount of business?
Mr. STIRLING. There is an additional rea-
son for a judge in Baltimore county, that its
situation brings into that county a large
amount of business from Baltimore city.
Mr. SANDS. I was about to say that. Ap-
plying this principle also to Allegany county,
we find that Allegany county has more than
twice the population of Montgomery county.
Is there no justice in giving Allegany a judge,
with twice the amount of population, and
four times the amount of litigation from the
peculiar circumstances of the case? I think
that the proposition is eminently fair. It
containing about the same amount of popula-
tion in each; and says that you shall have a
judge for twenty or twenty-five or thirty
thousand; and if there are not so many in
one county, to transact business in that |
court, two or three counties may be put to-
gether.
if the theory contained in the judiciary
report was a practicable one; if yon could
carry it out, I should advocate it here. But
1 see insuperable difficulties in the way of
rendering that theory effective, Believing
then that that is nut one that can practically
operate in Maryland, I go for what next pro-
motes the public interest and convenience;
so increasing the number of your circuits,
and so constituting your judicial districts in
circuits that twenty or twenty-five thousand
people, or even less—"far less as the gentle-
man will see by talking the census, for in
some districts it is not fifteen thousand, and
hardly ten thousand white inhabitants—may
have a judge. I am willing to go so far. that
ten, fifteen, or twenty thousand white inhabitants
shall have a judge to transact their
legal business.
I think that this is a proposition which our
friends upon the other side can accept as a
compromise in this matter, embodying a large
step in advance of the previously entertained
opinion of the majority of this house. I be-
lieve a large majority of those with whom 1
act, were in favor, in the first instance, of
adopting the present system without change.
Now we have nearly double the number of
circuits. Is not that a long step in the way
of compromise which the majority of this
house to-day holds out to the minority? 1
hold on to the principle, definite, ascertained,
infallible, that wherever as many as twenty
thousand white people are congregated to-
gether in any municipal or other capacity,
they shall have a judge, to attend to and de-
cide on all matters that arise in litigation be-
tween citizen and citizen. I do hope, as the
majority have made this long step toward a
compromise, to see some gentlemen on the
opposite side meeting it in the spirit in which
it is made; and that we may at once. in
some manner, have a certain degree of una-
nimity.
Mr. PURNELL, I am entirely opposed to
making the change in the circuit which em-
braces the counties of Somerset, Worcester
and Dorchester, contemplated by the gentle-
man from Somerset (Mr. Dennis.) While
there may be some disproportion in popula-
tion, and in territory, the business of that
circuit is not of such magnitude as to require
any change whatever. On the contrary, the
judge can attend to the business of the three
counties with very moderate labor. By the
change contemplated we should lose the judge,
Judge Spence, who is now the judge of that
district, and resides in Cambridge, Dorches-
where to be found in this State I repeat,
without fear of contradiction, that a better
circuit judge cannot be found anywhere than
Judge Spence, who now presides with so
much dignity and character in that circuit. |
